28 October 2005

If I moved the desk in my hotel room, opened the curtains all the way, and squashed my head against the window, I had a pretty good view of the Washington Monument. If not I had to settle for railroad tracks and office buildings.

26 October 2005

The subject of street names came up in the comments a couple of weeks ago. In the 1970s, Seventh Avenue north of 110th Street was renamed Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Blvd and Eighth Avenue (aka Central Park West along the park), was renamed Frederick Douglass Blvd. A few store fronts still identify themselves with an avenue address.

About a year ago I noticed the Department of Transportation replacing the small street signs with larger, easier-to-read, street signs. Only, the street names DOT used reverted back to 7th and 8th Avenues. As far as I knew the street names didn't change, just the signs identifying them. Aaron at Starts and Fits wrote about the strange name change last December.

The larger signs had been installed along Malcolm X Blvd 3-4 years ago and they didn't carry the reversion back to Lenox, or, going back far enough, 6th Avenue.

Earlier this fall the DOT replaced the large 6th and 7th Avenue signs with the more accurate large signs seen above. Maybe next fall they'll get Varick and Hudson Street signs to match their downtown names.

25 October 2005

Saturday night was Soktoberfest at Tien and Shannan's. That is not Tien or Shannan above. Aside from my boring white athletic socks a wide variety of footwear was on display (see the photos).

As the crow flies it is only 5.2 miles from my apartment to Tien's. Via the subway and walking the distance looks to be 8.5 miles. The subway runs less frequently late at night. With two transfers it took me 1.5 hours to get home, which works out to 5.7 mph.

On Sunday I joined several friends for a wild mushroom hunt in Connecticut. The foraging was led by "Wildman" Steve Brill, who is more famous for his Central Park foraging tours. After all the rain we've been having you'd think that there would be lots of mushrooms but there weren't. Between six of us we found enough mushrooms for dinner but not the bounty we had anticipated. We did gather lots of ramps, a wild and pungent relative of the leek and onion.

The ramps were used in a ramp-potato soup. The alpha chef sauteed the mushrooms separately from all the other food so we could better taste them. They tasted like mushrooms with a bitter, soapy aftertaste. The hunt was mildly fun, but in the future I'll stick to store bought.

I spent much of yesterday hunting and eating wild mushrooms in Connecticut. Walking home from the MetroNorth stop I see this dead chicken in the street. Are there, were there, chickens living in the park? I don't know. Too tired to write more now. Soon, though, I'll put up photos from my DC trip, mushroom foraging pictures, and even a few hot booty action photos! Oh, where to begin...

18 October 2005

The last stages of the 115th St. tenement took a long time. Once the heavy equipment was brought in, building parts, soil, roots, and what not got mixed into the garbage containers. As a shovel of trashed building was put into a container a guy crawled around and separated recyclables! Or something. There were clearly things (perhaps wood, it was hard to tell) that did not belong that he would throw into a separate container.

After the building disappeared a big hole was dug and a retaining wall erected. Later a small mountain of soil was built. That was shaped into a ramp to dig an even deeper hole. Digging still continues. You would not believe how many trucks of dirt were removed. They are still removing soil and rocks. If and when the digging stops and the building begins I'll post more pictures.

17 October 2005

One advantage to being a billionaire and self-financing your re-election campaign is being able to make different signs for different neighborhoods. I wonder how many neighborhood-specific signs Mayor Bloomberg's campaign has made? Is there a Bloomberg for NoLiTa sign? Sounds like a challenge to find them all!

16 October 2005

It's a year behind schedule but it looks like Ginger Express will soon be opening at 116th and 5th Avenue. I peeked in the window this morning and saw that the interior was mostly done and that drinks were in stock. A bit to the right is a bar with Hoegaarden on tap.

In case it opens soon enough, the view will include:

A giant crane swaying in the wind this morning. The construction is taking place on the site of Satch Sanders boyhood home. My apartment is in the red brick building behind the white church to the left.